This is a fairly new direction for us. For the last 10 years, we have been busy working behind the scenes as a tactical design team building user experiences for a variety of software and hardware companies. By definition, it’s our job to make our clients shine, create a compelling user experience and then move on to the next project.

We took a bit of a different approach with the PlayBook OS to start to move out from behind the curtain. I can understand how this may have caused some confusion and would like to respond to some of the questions posted among the comments.

“Did it say anywhere that Teknision is owed or was bought by RIM? Or are they still separate?”

The simple answer is that Teknision has not been purchased.

When people talk acquisition, we think it needs to be about the “right fit.” We have been courted in the past a few times and we are always open to talk but when it comes down to it, we love that we have the ability right now to work with many great brands like Intel, Adobe and RIM and help them come to the front of this new embedded industry. We really have been focused on growth and building the better product. So to answer the question, we are focused on new projects and new partners for now but never say never. I do think Teknision is going to be one of those companies to watch.

As for our work on PlayBook, we saw the project from a technical demo to an almost ready for prime time OS. We have been working with the QNX team for a couple of years now and this is the project that is getting the limelight but what they have under the hood with that platform is going to be something to keep an eye on. PlayBook needed to own and build a full-time dedicated team around its platform and it is now under the guidance of RIM’s newly acquired UXD team – the former TAT.

RIM’s acquisition of TAT is a perfect fit for the project. TAT designed the Android interface, they have extensive experience taking an OS to market. The acquisition also removes TAT from offering their services to the Android OS market – a very smart strategic move in my opinion. We left the project in very capable hands.

So where does Teknision fit in? We are working with dynamic companies like QNX, iControl, and Radian6 ( whose recent acquisition by Salesforce was another great success story) to create great embedded applications and user experiences on all types of screens. We believe that the tablet revolution is really part of a bigger movement towards embedding valuable, connected and beautiful experiences anywhere you can find a screen.